Guns, Germs and Steel

What role did geographic location and natural resources play in the the development of Malaysia?

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Malaysia is strategically sited just north of the Equator (2 30' North, 112 30' East). This beautiful country with an area of 329,750km is made up of two separate parts, East Malaysia and Peninsular Malaysia. Malaysia's climate has high humidity, hot temperatures and two seasons wet and dry. Rainfall in Malaysia is plentiful and its soil is fertile. Malaysia is protected from natural disasters such as earthquakes, hurricanes, and tsunamis. Malaysia is situated midpoint of trade routes making the Straits of Malacca possibly the leading shipping lane on the planet! The Straits of Malacca is the main shipping channel between The Indian Ocean and The Pacific Ocean, linking Europe and Asia. Over 50,000 vessels pass through The Straits per year, carrying about a quarter of the world's traded goods including oil, rubber, palm oil, tin, spices such as pepper and other commodities.



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Malaysia is blessed with abundant natural resources in areas such as agriculture, minerals and forestry. Malaysia's climate and its fertile soil enable many different types of plants to be grown all year round. Plants like rubber trees and oil palm trees were originally found in other places like Brazil and Africa. The British introduced them to Malaysia and we ended up becoming the biggest growers in the world. Malaysia also has a lot of tin and oil. We were also once the biggest exporter of tin in the world. Our oil is mainly found under the sea near Sabah and Terengganu. Today we no longer produce a lot of tin or rubber or oil compared to other countries but we are still one of the biggest exporters of palm oil. You can see how huge the oil palm plantations are when you drive on the highways.


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With its great geographic location and abundant natural resources, Malaysia was very attractive to countries and peoples from all over the world. Ships and traders from Europe and Asia stopped over in Malaysia and introduced new things, cultures, food and ways of thinking and doing things. People from other countries who came to Malaysia didn't have to worry about natural disasters like what is happening in Indonesia now. They didn't have to struggle to get food or to live in a land with bad weather. We have benefited from learning the best of Western and Asian cultures. Today, most Malaysians can speak three or more languages like English, Chinese and Bahasa Malaysia. We have a good education system that was taken from England. The natural resources like oil, tin, rubber, palm oil and timber that Malaysia exported to other countries generated a lot of wealth for Malaysia. The wealth was used to develop Malaysia and improve our standard of living. Our roads, airports, buildings, schools and hospitals are today among the best in the world. So in conclusion, we can say that Malaysia's geographic location and natural resources played a very important role in the development of Malaysia.




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REFERENCES.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia

http://geography.about.com/library/cia/blcmalaysia.htm

http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/drabble.malaysia

http://travel.110mb.com/natural_resources.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Malaysia